The Supreme Court issued a last-minute stay late Tuesday to a Florida death row inmate who claimed he was mentally retarded and should not be executed for killing a police officer.

Florida prison officials had put off the execution of Clarence Hill, who also wants to challenge the drugs that would be used, before word came from the court.

It was not clear if the court's intervention would only briefly delay Hill's execution, which had been scheduled for 6 p.m. EST. Justices were reviewing a pair of Hill appeals, and Justice Anthony Kennedy filed paperwork that said the execution should be delayed.

Earlier, Hill had lost appeals at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. He was scheduled to die at Florida State Prison for the Oct. 19, 1982, slaying of a Pensacola police officer and the wounding of his partner.

The court could still lift the stay and allow Florida to move ahead with the execution.

Hill was to be the 61st inmate executed in Florida since 1976, when executions resumed after a 12-year moratorium, and the 257th since 1924, when the state took that duty from individual counties.

He first asked the court for a stay last week.

Hill did not request a final meal, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Debbie Buchanan said Tuesday, and he refused the late-morning meal served to other inmates at Florida State Prison  glazed ham, fruit glaze, greens, black-eyed peas, coleslaw, bread, a cookie and tea.

After the stay was issued, Corrections spokesman Robby Cunningham said there would be no execution Tuesday. Witnesses had been waiting in the prison's witness room for about an hour.

Hill's lawyers argue that the three chemicals used in Florida's lethal injection method of execution cause pain, making his execution cruel and unusual punishment. He also contends that he is mentally retarded.

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Gimme a break! Sticking him with a needle causes pain too. Just kill him already.

I'd like to know how lethal injection could possibly fit the 'cruel and unusual' statute when the preferred methods of execution when the Constitution was written were shooting and hanging. This statute was made to outlaw things like drawing and quartering.

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